SSA wants better analytics to improve website

The Social Security Administration wants to upgrade its Web analytic tools to gain better insight into how the agency’s website is used and subsequently improve services to the general public.

The agency is seeking information about cloud-based software-as-a-service analytic tools from a commercial provider of cloud computing services, according to a request for information released Feb. 21 on FedBizOpps.gov.

“The ideal solution will increase the ability of SSA staff to gain additional insight into how our website is used and improve its service to the American people,” the RFI states. The Web analytics tool would have to give SSA staff the ability to identify and focus on targeted opportunities for improving Web pages and online services, and it must lead to actionable intelligence SSA can take to increase the marketing effectiveness and public satisfaction of socialsecurity.gov, SSA officials said.

Officials are looking to reduce Web analytics costs, gain support services that can be applied across SSA's Web properties, and equip SSA webmasters with modern, vendor-supported, holistic metrics on Internet and intranet usage that is reliable, they said. “The resulting capabilities should act as a catalyst to accelerate and improve the delivery of agency goals and services in the future,” the RFI states.

SSA is currently tracking a large portion of SSA.gov traffic. However, there are key gaps in the agency’s current tracking, and SSA officials are looking for a service with the following salient characteristics:

Ability to work on secure server applications and SSA subdomains.

Ability to work on SSA intranet sites, some of which are architected differently and hosted on a wide variety of platforms and servers.

Since SSA is currently using Google Analytics, the agency needs a Google Analytics-certified professional with the ability to:

Some additional requirements include the ability to handle approximately 30 million page views a month, the ability to navigate reports with high data volumes without sampling, and the ability to export data from any report through an application programming interface or in common formats such as PDF or XLS. SSA officials are also looking for tools that offer accelerated reporting and the freshest data possible, 99.9 percent in any calendar month. SSA officials also want a service-level agreement dashboard that will monitor data collection, reporting uptime and freshness, so they can verify system performance at any time.

Respondents should indicate whether their software is available on GSA Federal Supply Schedules or any other governmentwide acquisition contract, according to the RFI. Vendors can submit product cost and/or pricing data, inclusive of annual maintenance, however it is not required. Respondents should refer to SSA-RFI-12-0307. Electronic responses only must be submitted by 2 p.m., EST, March 7. Faxed information will not be permitted. The size limitation for e-mail attachments is 10 megabytes.

No formal solicitation is being issued at this time. The information will be used in SSA's assessment of capable sources. Respondents will not be notified of any evaluated results from the data received. Any questions should be submitted via e-mail only — no phone calls — to the contract specialist at Rick.Bolt@ssa.gov